Parking Garage

A Virginia-based developer's quest to build a parking garage at 18 W. Saratoga St. received a key endorsement Thursday when Baltimore's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel gave "revised schematic approval" to the latest design for the project. The plan by David and Richard Hillman of Southern Management Corp. calls for a 12-level, 375-space garage to be buried mostly underground, with just 24 spaces above street level. The top of the building would be 26 feet above the sidewalk.

Danyette Hawkins had to employ her best diplomatic skills as she stood in front of the Grand parking garage on Paca Street holding a bright-colored flag before the game. Every few minutes, a driver would pull up to enter the garage. Hawkins would have to explain that the garage — popular among fans when the team plays at night — was still filled with daytime business parkers. Then she would wave her flag and the car would move on. Some of the fans appeared frustrated.

A new parking garage will open Monday at The Fitzgerald at UB Midtown in Baltimore as the first completed phase of the $76 million mixed-use apartment project, developer the Bozzuto Group said Wednesday. The 1,245-space garage, adjacent to the University of Baltimore, will increase public parking in the Mount Vernon neighborhood and serve the university, cultural venues and residents of the Fitzgerald, which will have 275 luxury apartments and street-level shops including a Barnes & Noble College Booksellers Superstore.

Running parking garages is not a core function of government, so Baltimore Mayor Rawlings-Blake's plan to sell off city-owned garages would be an encouraging step toward shedding non-essential city assets and investing in more important priorities for the city's residents and long-term fiscal health. The mayor proposes selling four downtown city-owned garages to generate between $40 million to $60 million in net proceeds (after paying off $24 million in garage debt) that would be used to make improvements to city recreation centers.

A man and a woman waiting in the parking garage of the Maryland Live casino in Hanover were robbed at gunpoint early Friday, Anne Arundel County police said. A casino patron who left Maryland Live earlier was sitting in his car with a woman about 7 a.m. Friday when an armed man approached the vehicle and demanded money, police said. The man and woman were not hurt, and the robbery was filmed by security cameras in the parking garage. The suspect fled the garage with an undisclosed amount in a black Nissan Altima, police said.

A man was shot several times in the back just before 6 p.m. on a lower level of an underground parking garage in the heart of the University of Maryland, Baltimore and UM Medical Center campus, police said. The victim, who appeared to be in his mid-40s, is in critical but stable condition at a local hospital, said Detective Kevin Brown, a police spokesman. After the shooting, the assailant fled, he said. No description of the shooter was available last evening. Officers were still conducting an investigation of the scene an hour after the shooting, Brown said, and surveillance footage will be reviewed.

A Baltimore City Police officer was shot in the leg about a block away from the Central District office Tuesday night. The officer was shot in a parking garage in the unit block of South Frederick Street, police spokesman Donny Moses said. The unidentified officer was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center. His condition was not immediately available. The garage is open to the public but police officers in the Central District often use the garage, which is a block from the station, to park their off-duty vehicles.

Architect and scholar Shannon Sanders McDonald stepped out on a recent afternoon into a building that in her view stands as one of the most significant forms in architecture, an "It" structure, a hub around which today's urban development revolves. A nationally recognized authority on parking garages, McDonald walked from the Towson Town Center food court to Level C4 East, where she had parked her Mazda Miata. From here she would begin the tour of nearby examples of the architectural form she's been studying for nearly 20 years.

After a three-year struggle involving state officials and city merchants, the new Bladen Street parking garage is open to the public on weekday evenings and weekends, Annapolis officials announced. The 725-space garage, which was completed last month at the corner of Calvert Street, will offer free parking on weekends and from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. weekdays. Any vehicles left after 6 a.m. will be towed. Local business owners were pleased with the Friday announcement. "I think it's fantastic," said Chance Walgran, a member of the Annapolis Business Association.

The state Board of Public Works brushed aside concerns of transit advocates and an Annapolis neighborhood group yesterday by endorsing a five-story parking garage at the gateway to the city's historic downtown. The 732-space garage, planned at Bladen and Calvert streets, has long been envisioned as a replacement for more than 400 state employee parking spots that were lost when a nearby parking lot was used for public housing. Expected to be completed in 2006, the garage will cost at least $24 million and will be paid for through revenue bonds.

Three men robbed a teenage boy of his Air Jordan tennis shoes at a Westfield Annapolis Mall parking garage Sunday, Anne Arundel County Police said. About 8 p.m., the suspects - two black men and a white man between 17 and 18 years old - followed the victim from the mall into the garage, police said. The robbers then threatened him with violence if he did not give up the shoes. The suspects fled down the outside stairs toward Sears after the victim handed over the shoes. The victim alerted mall security to the incident.

Several Baltimore City Council members expressed skepticism Monday about a plan to sell some downtown parking garages, while others began lobbying the Rawlings-Blake administration to claim funds from the sale for recreation centers in their districts. Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young said he has concerns about the administration's proposal to raise up to $60 million for recreation centers by selling four of the city's 17 parking garages. Young noted the four garages are money-makers - bringing in $400,000 annually - and questioned whether it's wise to forgo future revenue for a quick cash infusion.

A 98-year-old North Carolina woman was left alone inside a truck for nearly five hours while her son patronized Maryland Live casino in Hanover on Monday, Anne Arundel County Police said. Dwight Ridgeway McGinnis Jr., 67, of the 6100 block of Tipping Circle in Raleigh, North Carolina, faces a vulnerable adult neglect charge after police said he left his mother inside the vehicle in a parking garage between approximately 1:42 p.m. and 6:41 p.m. At the time of the report, which was made after a concerned citizen contacted police, the air temperature was 81 degrees.

A Prince George's County man has been charged in an armed robbery that occurred early Saturday morning in the parking garage at the Maryland Live casino in Hanover. A man told Anne Arundel County police he and a woman were sitting in a vehicle in the garage shortly before 7 a.m. when they were robbed by a man with what they believed was a semi-automatic black handgun. Police detectives got a tip early Sunday morning from an anonymous caller who said they knew where the robber's vehicle was parked.

A man and a woman waiting in the parking garage of the Maryland Live casino in Hanover were robbed at gunpoint early Friday, Anne Arundel County police said. A casino patron who left Maryland Live earlier was sitting in his car with a woman about 7 a.m. Friday when an armed man approached the vehicle and demanded money, police said. The man and woman were not hurt, and the robbery was filmed by security cameras in the parking garage. The suspect fled the garage with an undisclosed amount in a black Nissan Altima, police said.

Developers of the proposed 25th Street Station shopping center in Remington are scheduled to bring updated plans to a Baltimore City design review board Sept. 26, in a clear sign that the controversial project, stalled by a lawsuit earlier this year, is moving forward. Rick Walker's development team, WV Urban Development, LLC, will go before the city's Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel, which approved the original plans for a shopping center, to be anchored by a Wal-Mart and Lowe's at 25th and Howard streets.

An Ellicott City woman was assaulted Thursday by an unknown assailant while approaching her car in the parking garage at Wincopin Circle,said county police spokesman Sgt. Gary L. Gardner.Police said the man ran when the victim screamed and elbowed him in the stomach. She escaped unharmed.The woman told officers she had left the Columbia Inn and walked across the street to the garage at about 9:40 p.m. when she was grabbed from behind around the waist by a man who was hiding between two cars in the garage, police said.

By Robert Guy Matthews and Robert Guy Matthews,Sun Staff Writer | June 5, 1995

USF&G Corp. is expected to gain the City Council as an ally today in the turf war with Mount Washington residents over the insurance company's plans for a large expansion of its campus in the North Baltimore neighborhood.The council, by all indications, will approve the first part -- a multilevel, 925-space parking garage at Mount Washington -- of the company's four-part plan, says Councilman Anthony J. Ambridge, whose district includes the neighborhood. The plan has sailed through on preliminary council votes.

A trial is underway for a former Baltimore city homicide detective charged with lying about shooting himself in a downtown parking garage in early 2011. The criminal charges brought by prosecutors conflict with the police investigation, which was open and inconclusive 18 months later when Det. Anthony Fata was charged. Fata faces charges of perjury, misconduct in office, and making false claims to obtain worker's compensation. Det. Valencia Vaughn, a fellow homicide detective, testified Wednesday that she visited Fata at Maryland Shock Trauma on the night of the shooting, Jan. 18, 2011, and he described having encountered an armed man a parking garage stairwell.

On Sunday, June 9 I went to the Mall at noon where I encountered a long line of cars in the parking garage adjacent to J.C. Penney and a parade of concert goers leaving the structure pulling coolers and clutching blankets. As I inched my way to the top level to find parking, I watched concert goers brazenly unloading their cars in spots intended for Mall customers. Yet, at the entrance to the Mall was a sign that said "no event parking," which presumably included the parking structure.